


Autistic Creative Challenge: Thirteenth Doctor

by Serameli



Series: Autistic Creative Challenge [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: #redinsted, 13 is so relatable, ADHD, ADHD Character, ADHD Doctor (Doctor Who), Animal Crossing - Freeform, Animal Crossing References, Asexual Doctor (Doctor Who), Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Character, Autistic Doctor (Doctor Who), Autistic Thirteenth Doctor, Characters Playing Animal Crossing Game(s), Drabble, Drabble Collection, Dragonmart, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fidget cube, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humour, I’m projecting, Meltdown, Nausea, Neurodiversity, One-Shot, Oneshot, Oneshot collection, Panromantic Doctor (Doctor Who), Penny Arcades, Physics, Quantum chemistry, References to the Beatles, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, Sensory Overload, Special Interests, Spoon Theory, Stimming, velvet worm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23936170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serameli/pseuds/Serameli
Summary: A collection of drabbles/oneshots written for uniqueaspergirl's Autistic Creative Challenge. All chapters focus around the Thirteenth Doctor. Inspired by AutisticWriter’s series for the same prompts.
Relationships: The Doctor & The Doctor's TARDIS, Thirteenth Doctor & Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair
Series: Autistic Creative Challenge [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725412
Comments: 25
Kudos: 60





	1. Prompt 1-#redinsted

“Doctor, can I ask you something?”  
The Doctor made a noise of acknowledgement from the floor where she was disassembling a broken toaster that Hakim had brought home from the dump.  
Yaz rolled her eyes fondly before continuing “Is there any particular reason why your wearing far more red than usual?”  
This got the alien to briefly look up from her project and utter “It’s April”  
“And what does that have to do with wearing red? Is it like, some sort of thing where you’re from?”  
The Doctor actually stopped what she was doing this time, indicating an impending infodump. “You really don’t know, do you” she said with a sigh. Yaz shook her head.  
“Well, every April a so-called charity called Autism Speaks floods the world with their campaign ’light it up blue’, which is really harmful by the way, and every person who actually cares about autistic people counter it by wearing red. Understand?”  
“Not entirely, why’s it harmful?”  
The Doctor grimaced and shuddered slightly before replying. “Just look it up, I’m sure many places have talked about it before, and I don’t really want to go into it if I don’t have to.”  
———————————————————————————————  
After some rummaging round the Internet, Yaz made an effort to wear red a bit more often during April.


	2. Stimming

The Doctor has many little eccentricities, from her speech patterns to her remarkable engineering skills; some however, seem to crop up primarily when she’s nervous, and it was only a matter of time before one of team TARDIS (in this case Ryan) asked her about it.

They were walking to the Home Zone from the packing line, lead by Kira, when Ryan noticed the Doctor was awkwardly pulling on her fingers again.  
“Doctor”, he said, nudging her slightly to get her attention “just out of interest, why do you do that?”  
“Do what?” She replied, seemingly oblivious to what her hands were doing.  
“Pulling on your fingers, you’ve been doing it quite a lot today, is there any reason or....” his sentence petered off as he looked expectantly at her for a reply.  
“Err, this is going to sound kind of weird”  
Ryan cut her off “Just about everything you say and do is at least a tad weird, so it’s not like this is going to be any different”  
“Well, I’m not actually entirely sure why I do it, I just kind of” she gestured wildly with her hands trying to dredge up a word that just wasn’t there. “do”   
“So like a nervous habit”  
“I mean I guess, technically it’s a stereotypy, but it’s often called stimming, nobody’s quite sure what it does, but it must do something, I mean; wait, am I rambling again?”  
“Yeah, but that’s fine”, Ryan knew from experience that the Doctor could get a bit self-conscious about how much and how loud she can speak (it’s one of the handful of things about herself that seems to bother her), and she had enough to think about anyway. “So, I’m going to assume stimming is an..”  
The Doctor butted in “ASD thing,”   
“I was going to say alien, but ok that makes sense too”  
The conversation fell dead for a while, before the Doctor piped up again.  
“Thanks” she said in an uncharacteristically quiet tone.  
“For what?” Ryan replied, though he was expecting her to start talking about something, that was one of the last things he was expecting.  
“For understanding”  
“Doctor, you’re a time-traveling alien with a sentient ship and I met you when you fell through the top of a train, you could probably tell me you can see UV light and it wouldn’t surprise me, this is nothing”  
A smile spread across her face, “Did I not tell you, I can see UV, kind of, it’s weird that humans can’t, well, you can, but your corneas filter it out...”  
All Ryan could do was sigh as his friend explained how the eye functioned in far too much detail, she was strange, but in a good way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy moly I can’t believe it took me 5 damn days to write something I was even remotely happy with, especially considering this is a subject that I actually have a lot of experience with. Am I projecting again? Yes. Yes I am. The next chapters should come sooner than this one did. Constructive criticism is more than welcome, I’m still mastering the art of dialogue.


	3. Special interest

The Doctor looked out the TARDIS doors, marvelling at the swirling clouds of dust clumping together to form stars, planets, and everything else that you’d find in a solar system. It was beautiful in its own way, how the remains of one thing could reform into something entirely different. Conservation of mass was probably her favourite theory, it was such a beautifully simple concept, it gave her hope and comfort, her favourite feelings, as she knew that people and things gone by are never truly gone, as the quarks and leptons and bosons that had made them up will always remain.   
The Doctor had been fascinated with astronomy from a young age, always looking up at the stars, longing to know their secrets, which of course lead to the obsession with physics and traveling. It was easily their oldest and most constant special interest, so it really held a special place in her hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this took so long, I was trying to write something different, but it wasn’t going anywhere, so it’s ended up as the 2nd ‘freebie’ chapter.


	4. Communication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quantum chemistry with a detour through 60’s guitarists.

“Did you know” started the Doctor between licking a soft-serve ice cream covered in raspberry sauce “that there’s technically different flavours of neutrinos”  
“Doc, I don’t even know what a blinkin’ neutrino is, let alone that there’s different types” Graham had been the one to pull her and the others away from a sandcastle building competition between themselves for a snack break, which wasn’t going to plan.  
“Ok, so a neutrino is a kind of lepton, but it’s sort of an opposite to the normal leptons...” she looked up only to be greeted by 3 faces displaying varying tones of confusion, which prompted her to continue “so, you’ve got atoms, and within each atom you have sub-atomic particles, with me so far?” Nobody objected, and so the monologue continued.  
“And those sub-atomic particles are mostly made up of fundamental particles, which was what I was talking about earlier, like your quarks and your leptons and your bosons, though bosons aren’t really things, they’re more forces, mind you electrons aren’t really things either, they’re more like waves, like sound waves I suppose, I mean, they’re even described as harmonics, like how guitar strings can create different notes, did I tell you I can play the guitar? I got a crash course from George Harrison himself, and Eric Clapton, they were both married to Pattie Boyd, interesting woman...”  
“Doctor” Ryan interrupted “I think you’ve missed something out, you’re making less sense than usual”  
“Have I? What was I taking about before?”  
“You were explaining something quantum, but I think we took a detour through guitarists or something”  
“Aah, must have got off topic, I do that sometimes. Not good at keeping track me, so much to learn and teach, it all gets tangled sometimes, now where was I? Oh yeah, quantum chemistry, so...”  
Graham groaned and buried his face in his hands, so much for a relaxing afternoon on the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry I vanished for over a month. I’ve had horrible artist’s block for that time and I couldn’t create something I was even remotely happy with. Fortunately I came up with this. My inspiration came from episode 5 of Crash Course Chemistry (on Youtube, worth checking out, especially if your an A-level chemistry student like myself). Hopefully my uploads should be more regular for this fic.


	5. Freebie (caffeine)

Considering her alien biology and the fact that caffeine doesn’t always affect neurodivergent humans normally, it’s quite remarkable how well it works on the Doctor.  
This was evident when Yaz returned from work to find, in a room she didn’t even know existed, the Doctor jumping on a trampoline, playing what looked like an unusually small keyboard with a piece of tubing leading up to her mouth.  
“Hi Yaz! How was work? Are you doing ok? I’m doing great! Look what I found; it’s my melodica! I haven’t seen it in ages, isn’t it fab? What’s wrong? You look shocked.”  
“I...” She wasn’t wrong, Yaz was indeed surprised, mainly due to the fact that the Doctor was somehow more hyperactive than usual. Before she could even think, the Doctor’s rambling continued.  
“Lovely tea by the way”  
“What tea?”  
“You know the one, it’s in a yellow and blue box. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”  
“Doctor, that’s high-caffeine tea, I use it to wake myself up when working shift”   
The penny dropped for both of them, as it was now crystal clear why the alien was practically bouncing off the walls.  
“Right, I’m off to do repairs, better make the most of this, bye” and with that she ran down the hall towards the main console room.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
What inevitably happens after consuming some sort of stimulant, is a crash. Which, in this case, took the form of the Doctor falling asleep under the main TARDIS console while working on repairs, hitting herself on the forehead with a spanner.

“Sleep is the enemy” she muttered in reply to Graham, who had followed the metallic thump the offending tool had made. He just gave her a rather confused look before going back to the kitchen, muttering something to himself. The Doctor on the other hand had wandered down the hall, leaning slightly on the walls until she reached a room that really wasn’t frequented: her bedroom, which she stumbled into before awkwardly kicking off her boots without undoing the laces and crawling under the curtain of the 4 poster bed, where she fell asleep, laying oddly on her front in a way most would consider uncomfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ending inspired by a piece of fan art by Doodlebless on Tumblr (https://doodlebless.tumblr.com/post/613858073449201664)


	6. Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 13’s adventurous eating habits backfire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to my friend, the previously mentioned Patat for giving me a crash-course in Pakistani food, and my uncle, who’s questionable cooking skills and obsession with preserving fruit has given me plenty of inspiration for Hakim.

Yaz awoke to noises coming from her kitchen, which wasn’t odd in itself, except these weren’t the standard noises that came from her family’s general antics, these sounds were more sporadic and clumsy. Worried that it may be a burglar (or maybe just Sonya pulling her leg), she got out of bed, and creeped towards the kitchen, where she saw a rather familiar shape bumbling about, rummaging through the fridge and periodically washing a spoon under the tap. She had almost forgotten the Doctor was staying with them.   
Yaz flicked on the lights, causing her friend to come to a sudden halt, mid-mouthful.  
“Doctor, is that... are you eating my dad’s dreadful achaar straight out the jar?”  
“Mmhm”  
“How do even stomach that stuff? I mean, carrots and ripe mango, together, in vinegar, I swear he has no tastebuds, or brain cells for that matter.”  
Yaz continues to observe the controlled chaos splayed across the countertop, mainly the small collection of spoons that had built up in the sink.  
“Liked the curry in the ice cream tubs, very inventive, bit of a surprise though.”  
“That’ll be Nani. Wait, you didn’t eat any of that, did you?” Yaz said, picking up a plastic tub that at some point contained vanilla ice cream, but now contained an unidentifiable and rancid-smelling mush “Because it’s been stewing in the fridge for ages now, I could have sworn it got thrown away.”  
“Perhaps” the Doctor suddenly looked very awkward.  
“How did you not realise it had gone off? It smells awful”  
“Did think it tasted a tad funny, but sometimes you get perfectly safe foods that smell terrible, like durian or...”  
“Look, did you or did you not ingest something from this tub” Yaz gestured at the offending container for effect.  
“I sort of panicked, and, er, swallowed it” The Doctor seemed to have taken sudden interest in her feet, which were currently in a pair of sandal-like slippers with a rainbow across them.  
Yaz cringed “Oh you should be so glad that nobody else is around, because that sounds incredibly wrong out of context”  
“Huh? Well, anyway, should be fine, superior biology and all that, doubt I’ll fall victim to food poisoning.”  
“Good because if that dreadful pickle isn’t going to make you sick, the curry definitely would.”

Towards the end of her shift, Yaz’s phone begins to furiously vibrate in her pocket, momentarily wincing at the sight of her mother’s name of the screen, she accepts the call.   
“Yaz, good that you could pick up, your friend isn’t feeling too well and I thought it would be best if you could have a little chat”  
There was the telltale noise of a mobile phone being handed from one person to another before what could best be described as a groan was emitted from the other end.   
“Not quite as immune as expected, huh?”  
Another groan  
“Look, I’ll pick something up for you on my way home, does human medicine even work for you”  
“Some do some don’t, some’ll poison me, some’ll get me drunk”  
“I think it’ll be easier if I call you back when I’m actually at the shop”

Yaz ended up returning home with a large bottle of lemonade, an assortment of jelly flavours, and a packet of bicarbonate of soda (which took a while to find due to the Doctor referring to it as sodium hydrogen carbonate). Some of the lemonade was mixed with several heaped teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda as well as almost as much salt to produce a frankly revolting drink that was supposed to replace anything lost from the vomiting session and neutralise some acidity (because, as it turns out, part of the Doctor’s increased immune defence system is a particularly hostile stomach environment).  
After changing out of uniform (and showering), she sat down next to the small stack of blankets and pillows that was the Doctor.  
“You feeling any better?”  
“A bit, thanks for the lemonade”  
“What have we learned from today?”  
“I’m not a child Yaz, I’m over 2000 years old”  
“Well you don’t seem to have gained much wisdom from all that time, all things considered”  
“Sod off”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry for the shoddy update schedule. There’s been a non-COVID related medical fiasco in the family and the stress that’s come with it has fried my brain (like it wasn’t melted already). Updates are still going to be kind of slow, as it’s taking me longer to write and edit.


	7. Spoons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A general lack of (metaphorical) spoons

The Doctor pokes her head round the kitchen door, where Graham is busying himself trying to get a rather futuristic toaster to do his bidding.  
“Hi Graham! You up for going on a trip, I’ve found this fantastic theme park.”  
“To be honest Doc, I don’t think I can handle another adventure right now”  
“What’s the matter Graham, out of spoons?”  
“Ok I’m lost already”  
“Spoon Theory, used to describe energy levels, usually by neurodivergent people or those with chronic illness, ever heard of it?”  
“Not that I remember”  
“Huh, thought you would’ve. Never mind, now you have something new for your vocab! If we’re being honest, I’m a tad tired too, see you later, I’m off to fix that grill, I’ve been meaning to do it for a while now, bye!”  
Graham just groans and goes back to making breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short one. I’ve just started at a new college and it’s taking a lot of my own spoons. As for the theme park, that’ll appear in the next chapter.


	8. Crowd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fam take a trip to a theme park

“So this is the theme park?”  
“Yep!”  
“Not weird or foreign or anything, just standard Thorp Park type ordeal?”  
“Yep!”  
“No alien threats, nothing like that?”  
“Nope, none at all, just a fun day out. Everyone got their passes?”  
In answer Graham, Ryan, and Yaz held up the cards that would grant them a free day out.  
“Fab, right then, let’s get going!”  
Ryan turned to Graham “We’re not going to see her all day, are we”  
“Unlikely. Might as well get going”

It took 8 hours for the whole team to find one another again. Graham was found sitting on a bench with a small box of popcorn and a near life-size Pacific octopus plush.  
“Just minding this for the Doc, she’s over there” he points to a stand selling churros “thought it might discourage her from disappearing again, and I really don’t want her spilling chocolate on it. Anyway, looks like you two were busy, look at all those stuffed animals.”  
“Yaz won ‘em, every time some macho young prick tried to win a teddy for his girl, P.C. Khan had to go and show off”  
Yaz suddenly looked bashful “I’ve always been a bit competitive for my own good”  
“Got that impression, mind you, I ought to tell you how I found her. Got an announcement from lost and found saying there was a ‘miss John Smith’ there. Didn’t exactly take me long to realise who it was”  
“He’s not tellin’ ya how he found me, is he?” During the conversation, the Doctor had returned with arms full of cardboard containers of churros and hot chocolate dipping sauce “Man that was embarrassin’, I sort of panicked when they asked for a name, and John was kind of my default. Forgot that I don’t look like a John now, better start thinking up a new alius”  
“Doctor?” Yaz interrupted the ramble before it got too ridiculous.  
“Yeah?”  
“That octopus, it looks rather a lot like the ones in the giant claw machines, you know, the ones nobody ever wins”  
“Ah, yes, well, I may or may not have soniced it into giving me the octopus, and so it gave something to the kid behind me”  
“I’m surprised you haven’t been banned yet”  
“I did get banned from some of the games, but it’s not my fault the tin cans are bottom-heavy and almost impossible to knock down!”  
“I think we should go before someone realises that you’ve been tampering with the claw machine”  
“Yeah, that might be a good idea, don’t want to get banned from another one”  
“WHAT?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho boy. I’m sorry I vanished for 2 months. A-levels and artists’ block is not a good combination for writing. I’m going to take a quick break to write Christmas drabbles and then I’ll be back at my BS dreaming up plots in chemistry and writing fanfic. And yes I am literally posting this before a psychology mock (sorry Robert).

**Author's Note:**

> Ok this is my first set of fics I’ve ever written, and constructive criticism is welcome. I also wrote this quite late at night so I’m sorry if there’s any errors, I have proofread it, (but I’m a dyslexic with the attention span of a hyperactive gecko).


End file.
